True Love Dungeon
The player characters are Heroes hired by the kingdom to accompany Prince Phillip and make certain he brings his fiance back to his homeland. The last time the Prince tried to meet his Former bride to be, he almost got killed by his family's rivals for the Throne. He got seduced by one of the player characters and lost his virginity. And when he met his fiance's family, most of the other Heroes convinced him it was better not to marry her. Fine with him. He's rather afraid of women anyway. (You should meet his mother, the Queen) So this time, the Kingdom is only hiring men to accompany the Prince. We'll see if this group meets with better success than the last... The Mission was for a group of Heroes to escort the Crown Prince Philip of Southumbria to meet his Bride-to-be and return with her to his own kingdom. Another rival Family for the throne, Clan MacGregor, were determined to prevent this marriage from taking place. The Heroes were recruited in Silmaria (Hero-U), weeks away from the kingdom so that the Rival Clan for the throne couldn't interfere with the hiring process. The stipulations were that they had to be Heroes, they had to be male, and they had to work for 500 gold pieces. The hired Heroes turned out to be a Paladin, a Holy Grail-Questing Fighter, a Viscount, a Halfling Fighter , and a magic-using Gnome. They sailed to Albion and had phenomenal luck with smooth sailing all the way (except for the Espaniol Pirates who lost interest after their sails were burned away by a Fireball and burning arrows). They stayed at an Inn at the port city, and soon found a note under their doors. "500 gold pieces if the Prince doesn't return with his bride to Southumbria. 1000 gold Pieces if the Prince doesn't return to Southumbria at all." Fortunately for the sake of the Prince, the party turned out to be very lawful types who decided not to take the anonymous note passer up on the offer. Instead, they spent much of their overland travel time to the kingdom of Southumbria trying to catch the note passer. They did manage to capture a scullery maid who was putting notes under their doors. However, it turned out that she had been paid to do this by a Red-haired gentleman the previous day. They did get slightly sidetracked from their main mission when they heard a cry of "Save Me!" coming from the woods. The Paladin and the two fighters rode off to save the damsel in distress. However, they had not ridden far when someone yelled at them to "Halt and Throw down their weapons." For some reason, our intrepid heroes choose to disregard this advice. Instead, they drew their Magically Glowing Swords and raised their magic shields and pointed out that they were prepared to kill all the brigands unless the brigands released the distressed damsel immediately. After a few whispered conversations in the trees around the Heroes, the brigands agreed to the Heroes' terms and shoved out a rather pimply, lanky form with a mop for a wig and a tattered skirt (rather resembling a certain one-eyed pirate in drag from the "Pirates of the Caribbean" movie). The Brigands gladly ran off with their lives, and the very homely damsel was given a bag of money for her tribulations as she(?) scuttled off after the brigands as quickly as possible without tripping over the hem of the skirt. The Brigands will know better the next time than to try to take on men in armor with glowing swords. However, they still made a profit once they made their damsel divvy up the money. So the Heroes made it to Southumbria, Met the King, Queen, and Prince Philip, and then headed North to the Barony of Seaton to meet Baron Saunders of Seaton second daughter, Saundra. Prince Philip seemed resigned to his fate. He had to get married this time. The only incident that marred the journey to the Barony occurred one night at a very nice inn. The fighter was on watch in the inn's corridors when a red-haired man came up the stairs and asked him if he was willing to take the five hundred golds and just not interfere with what was about to happen. The Fighter refused to be bribed. the red-haired man warned him that things were going to be dangerous very soon and the man walked back down the stairs. Then, two Hill Giants and Two Ogres came up the stairs. Fortunately, the Grail-Questing Fighter was a stout sort, and the other Heroes joined with him to fight these monsters. The monsters were soon dispatched, and only the Halfling was seriously injured in the friendly Fireball. They made it the rest of the way to Seaton without further incident. Prince Philip and his intended bride, Lady Saundra, met one another. It was mutual dislike at first sight. How can our Heroes save the day? How can they bring 'True Love', the Prince, and his Fiancee back to Southumbria? So what do You do when your mission is to get a Crown Prince married, and he can't stand his Bride-to-Be? (At least, the feeling was mutual.) Prince Philip may have been engaged to wed Lady Saundra, but their future together seemed a bit unpleasant. But our Heroes came to their rescue. The Paladin, the Fighter, the Viscount, the Gnome, and the Halfling all had their parts to play in this little adventure. First, the party of Heroes tried to set up a romantic situation of a Picnic in the Park, all alone except for some 30 servants and retainers. That didn't get too far. Then there was the Ball in the (un-)romantic couple's honor. That didn't quite go the way it was supposed to...Philip inadvertently stepped on the hem of Saundra's dress and ruined it. (And the Halfling in the party ate most of the refreshments.) The Heroes did notice that Saundra's younger sister, Cecily, seemed very attracted to charming Prince Philip. Philip rather liked being admired by such a sweet innocent. Cecily was one of the few women who didn't remind Philip of his mother. This seemed all very promising. Unfortunately, Saundra had to get married before her younger sister did. That's the way things are supposed to be. While some of the Heroes were of rank high enough to marry a Baron's daughter, none of them really wanted to get married to Saundra, either. Finally, the Viscount of group decided to ask Saundra's Ladies in Waiting just why Saundra wasn't interested in marrying the Prince. Well, aside from the fact that Prince Philip's kingdom was barely the size of this barony, and the fact that Prince Philip's mother was reknown for being someone best avoided by everyone, or the fact that Prince Philip's life expectancy was about as high as a Mayfly since the Clan MacGregor was out to take his throne away from him, it seemed that Saundra still carried a torch for her previous Fiance. "Previous fiance? What happened to him?" It turned out that Saundra was engaged to the Duke of Seaton's fourth son, Eric. Eric made the assumption that his Fairy Godmother, Drusilla, could not hear the words, "Oolishfay olday Iddiebay," or that she didn't understand Pig Latin. Unfortunately, Drusilla was quite literate and rather peeved at her godson's impertinence. So she turned Eric into a frog. Ahah! A plan was formed. Restore Eric to his proper form, marry him off to Saundra, and then Prince Philip could marry Cecily. So our Heroes rode off to the rescue once again. They stopped off at the Fairy Godmother's cottage and shared her tea and crumpets. They tried to convince Drusilla that Eric really needed to be turned back into a man. She seemed rather skeptical that six months of eating flies and mosquitoes was really adequate punishment. Then they said the magic words... True Love "Lady Saundra was pining away in her father's Barony, refusing any other suitor than Eric. Her younger sister, Cecily, was madly in love with Prince Philip of Southumbria. Prince Philip, in turn, had lost his heart at first sight of Cecily. However, cruel Baron Saunders refused to allow Cecily to marry before Saundra. So three hearts were even at this moment breaking." Well, what Fairy Godmother worth her wand could resist the spell of True Love? Not Drusilla. She changed the spell on Eric such that a kiss from his True Love would restore him to his normal spell. She was even so pleased at the Heroes actions that she gave the Halfling a magical bag of cookie (once per hour, a cookie appeared - now the Halfling could learn to tell time!) and granted them all good luck. So then they rode off the the Ducal Palace to convince the Duke to let them take his froggish son away. Fortunately, a healthy bribe to the chief advisor of the Duchy helped them convince the Duke this was the only way to restore his son to his true form. Our Heroes then returned to the barony with the former fiance frog. They let Saundra know that if she didn't kiss Eric, she would have to marry Prince Philip. Then they set up a little moonlight supper out in the garden, just Saundra and her frog and a lot of wine (and all the Heroes and retainers just hiding in the bushes around the couple). Well, moonlight and wine had their charm (or else the threat was greater than the execution). Saundra kissed the frog. The Frog turned back into his handsome, wealthy, lives-in-a-huge-Palace shape. Ah, the wonders of True Love! The party returned to Southumbria with Cecily now formally engaged to marry Prince Philip. The Good Luck spell cast upon the Heroes meant that they had excellent weather the entire return trip. (Although, oddly enough, it poured rain and hail and snow and sleet upon the group of Clan MacGregor who where trying to ambush the party, and they all caught the flu and had to give up their plans for the time being.) So Philip married Cecily and Eric married Saundra; The morose Gnome of the party decided he rather liked Drusilla, and started courting her; and the Halfling had a magical bag of cookie... Now that's True Love.https://web.archive.org/web/20040927054432fw_/http://www.transolar.com:80/TSheart.html References Category:Alternate Canon Category:Articles (HTBAH)